Solar Future Studies Part I: Solar Futures Scenarios and Core Results

This online engineering PDH interactive presentation provides a summary on the first part of the Solar Futures Study, which includes the discussion of solar futures scenarios and their core results.

The U.S. electric grid is one of the world’s largest machines, comprising millions of miles of transmission and distribution lines that connect thousands of large-scale electricity generators to end users. The grid has undergone tremendous change in the past decades, in part due to innovations in the solar energy industry. In 2020, fossil fuel combustion continued to generate most U.S. electricity, emitting around 1.45 billion metric tons (gigatons, Gt) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. On its current trajectory, the United States is unlikely to meet its targets for keeping global temperature rise below 2°C as specified under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

This presentation introduces the first part of the Solar Futures Study which discusses the goals of decarbonizing the U.S. electricity grid by 2035 and shifting the nation onto an irreversible path to a 100% clean-energy economy, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050—while strengthening the American economy, creating well-paying domestic jobs, conserving natural resources, and ensuring that the benefits and costs of the clean energy transition are equitably distributed. The Solar Futures Study uses the state-of-the-art modeling capabilities of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to develop and evaluate three core scenarios. It also continues to explore what it will take to achieve solar deployment at the pace and scale envisioned in these scenarios, by exploring the synergies between solar technologies and energy storage, and the necessary transformations of the U.S. electric grid.